Exxon Mobil spent $2 million on pro-fracking ad campaign

Mar. 30, 2013

FILE - In this July 27, 2011 file photo, workers stand behind the top of a pump for the hydraulic fracturing process in the Marcellus Shale layer to release natural gas at a Range Resources site in Claysville, Pa. On Wednesday, April 11, 2012, the price of natural gas has fallen to its lowest level in more than a decade, a remarkable decline for a commodity that not long ago was believed to be in short supply. Natural gas production has boomed across the country as energy companies employ a new drilling technique to tap previously untouched reserves. The process has raised concerns about water safety, and has been temporarily banned in New York and New Jersey. But where it has been allowed, it has led to increases in drilling, job growth and production. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File) / AP

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| Gannett Albany Bureau

ALBANY — Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. spent $2 million on a pro-drilling advertising campaign en route to becoming New York’s second-highest spender on lobbying last year, according to a report Thursday from the state’s ethics board.

Exxon Mobil spent $2.1 million total on its New York lobbying in 2012, second only to the $4.2 million spent by a coalition of business interests known as the Committee to Save New York, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics found.

State records show the company sent $2 million in July to the Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York, a trade group, to fund a series of newspaper and radio advertisements in support of high-volume hydraulic fracturing. The much-debated method, also known as fracking, is used to help unlock natural gas from the gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation and has been on hold in New York since 2008.

“We felt it was important to support the campaign that they were putting forward and the public-education initiatives that we wanted to support,” said Alan Jeffers, an Exxon spokesman.

Overall, lobbying spending totaled $205 million in 2012, a 7 percent decline from the $220 million spent the previous year, according to the ethics board’s report. It was the first time year-to-year spending had decreased since 1999 and 2000, and the lowest total spent on lobbying since 2008.

Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded company, has an interest in whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration ultimately allows large-scale hydrofracking. In 2008, XTO Energy -- now a subsidiary of Exxon -- struck a $110 million deal to lease the oil-and-gas rights to about 46,000 acres of land in eastern Broome and Delaware counties in the Marcellus Shale region.

The series of advertisements appeared in a number of upstate New York newspapers, mostly in the Southern Tier. The pro-fracking ads displayed the names of a number of groups that were supportive of the message, including IOGA and the Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce, but did not specifically mention Exxon Mobil.

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Jeffers noted that the company is a member of IOGA, the Binghamton chamber and the state Business Council, all of which were listed on the advertisements. Exxon Mobil was the 268th highest spender on New York lobbying in 2011, according to the New York Public Interest Research Group.

“ExxonMobil can keep spending good money after bad, but our elected officials should continue listening to health experts, scientists and average New Yorkers, not out-of-state energy behemoths,” Alex Beauchamp, Northeast region director of Washington-based Food and Water Watch, said in a statement.

James Smith, a spokesman for IOGA, said “the same level of scrutiny” is not shown to environmental groups and fracking critics as it is to the gas industry. Pro-fracking groups have long pointed to some fracking opponents that aren’t registered to lobby in New York, while the Ithaca-based Park Foundation distributed more than $3 million to anti-fracking groups from 2009 through 2011.

“This (advertising campaign) was a major buy to let the public know what the truth is about natural gas development and who are the real people whose livelihood is at stake,” Smith said.

Meanwhile, the Committee to Save New York was the biggest spender on lobbying for the second year in a row. The coalition of mostly business groups formed as Gov. Andrew Cuomo took office in 2011 and has spent large sums on television advertisements supporting his fiscal agenda.

The $4.2 million the group spent in 2012 was down from the $11.9 million it spent the previous year. But the Committee to Save New York has gone mostly silent in recent months as new disclosure requirements took effect, requiring most lobbying groups to unveil their donors.

“We remain active,” Michael McKeon, a spokesman for the group, said in an email. “That said, we don’t discuss strategy in media but have never been shy about letting you know about our plans at the appropriate time. That is still the case.”